GAZA: A young man has died after setting himself on fire in the Gaza Strip, apparently in protest at economic hardship in the Palestinian enclave, the man’s family and police said on Monday.

Ehab Abu Nada, 18, left his home on Thursday after an argument with his father, who had urged him to find work to help feed his poor family. Frustrated in his job hunt, Abu Nada doused himself in petrol and set himself alight inside Gaza’s main Shifa hospital.

His neighbours suggested he might have chosen to immolate himself at the hospital because he had wanted to make a gesture rather than kill himself, but medics there could not save him. He was pronounced dead on Sunday.